The Bonesetter's Daughter: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Amy Tan

““As compelling as Tan’s first bestseller, The Joy Luck Club. . . No one writes about mothers and daughters with more empathy than Amy Tan.”–The Philadelphia Inquirer

“[An] absorbing tale of the mother-daughter bond . . . this book sing[s] with emotion and insight.”–People

Ruth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . .

In a remote mountain village where ghosts and tradition rule, LuLing grows up in the care of her mute Precious Auntie as the family endures a curse laid upon a relative known as the bonesetter. When headstrong LuLing rejects the marriage proposal of the coffinmaker, a shocking series of events are set in motion–all of which lead back to Ruth and LuLing in modern San Francisco. The truth that Ruth learns from her mother’s past will forever change her perception of family, love, and forgiveness.

“For Tan, the true keeper of memory is language, and so the novel is layered with stories that have been written down–by mothers for their daughters, passing along secrets that cannot be said out loud but must not be forgotten.”–The New York Times Book Review

“Tan at her best . . . rich and hauntingly forlorn . . . The writing is so exacting and unique in its detail.”–San Francisco Chronicle

bit of English, some of which I knew from living at the orphanage school. But Miss Patsy spoke English like a British person, and at first it was very hard for me to understand. Lady Ina's words were also hard to understand. The sounds spilled out as soft and lumpy as the porridge she ate every day. She was so old she was like a baby. She made messes in her panties, both kinds, stinky and wet. I know, because I had to clean her. Miss Patsy would say to me, "Lady Ina needs to wash her hands." And

once." Wendy ran her own agency that hunted extras as San Francisco local color—cops with handlebar mustaches, six-foot-six drag queens, socialites who were unknowing caricatures of themselves. "On top of everything, I feel like shit," Wendy said, and stopped to sneeze and blow her nose. So she wasn't crying, Ruth realized, before the phone clicked twice. "Damn," Wendy said. "Hang on. Let me get rid of this call." Ruth disliked being put on hold. What was so dire that Wendy had to tell her first

Eighty was how long he should have lived, if only he had had better luck. So eighty was what our family decided he was—luckier, yes, but still dead." I, too, had something to say on the new discovery: "Why are they calling him Peking Man? The teeth came from the Mouth of the Mountain. And now the scientists are saying that skullcap was a woman's. So it should be called Woman from the Mouth of the Mountain." My aunts and uncles looked at me, and one of them said: "Wisdom from a child's lips,

happened?" I walked toward her. Her hair was unbound and matted, and then I saw that her neck was clotted with flies. She kept her eyes on me, but her hands were still. One held a knife used to carve the inkstones. Before I could reach her, a tenant pushed me aside so she could better gawk. Of that day, that was all I remembered. I didn't know how I came to be in my room, lying on the k'ang. When I awoke in the dark, I thought it was still the morning before. I sat up and shuddered, shaking off

things, and I wanted Mother to favor her more. But Precious Auntie shook her head. She pulled off her scarf and pointed to her face and bunched her brows. What use do I have for prettiness ? she was saying. Her bangs fell to her eyebrows like mine. The rest of her hair was bound into a knot and stabbed together with a silver prong. She had a sweet-peach forehead, wide-set eyes, full cheeks tapering to a small plump nose. That was the top of her face. Then there was the bottom. She wiggled her